Die of Shame Read online

  ‘Anaesthetic’s worn off, hasn’t it?’

  ‘All the way through rehab they keep on telling you how much better everything’s going to be, but they never tell you that a lot of the time it won’t feel like it.’

  ‘You feel conned, right?’

  Heather stares at him. ‘I’m not saying I’d want to go back. I’d never want to use again.’

  ‘Course,’ Chris says. ‘Me neither.’

  ‘Wouldn’t mind a decent job, that’s all.’ She scrunches up her takeaway bag and stands up. ‘So I could afford something other than KFC for lunch.’

  Chris says, ‘What, like Nando’s, you mean? You’ve got ideas above your station.’ He watches her walk to a litter bin twenty yards away. When she gets back and sits down again, he says, ‘You should get yourself a rich boyfriend.’

  ‘I’d settle for something with a pulse,’ Heather says.

  ‘Nice older man with a few bob tucked away. It’s great for a month or two, like a holiday. Just close your eyes when it’s time to do the business and imagine it’s Hugh Jackman.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘George Clooney?’

  ‘I want to be in love with someone,’ Heather says.

  Chris shrugs. ‘Yeah, well we all live in hope.’

  They say nothing for a while, watch the comings and goings, slurping at their fizzy drinks. Chris removes his jacket and lets his head drop back, enjoying the sunshine.

  ‘You all set for Monday?’ Heather asks.

  ‘All set for what?’

  ‘The shame thing.’

  ‘Who says it’s my turn?’

  ‘Just in case it is.’

  Chris sits up quickly and shakes his head. ‘No way. Tony can’t make me do anything I don’t want to.’

  ‘When has Tony ever made you do anything?’

  ‘Still not convinced there’s much point.’

  ‘Robin thought there was. Said he found it really helpful.’

  ‘Yeah, well,’ Chris says. ‘He’s into all that sharing crap. Sharing some things, anyway.’

  ‘Why bother coming to group sessions at all? If you don’t want to share anything.’

  ‘Not sure I’ll stick it, to be honest,’ Chris says. ‘Not sure it’s helping.’

  ‘You told Tony?’

  ‘Not as yet.’

  ‘You shouldn’t be afraid of it,’ Heather says. ‘Whatever it is you’re ashamed of. I bet you, whatever it is, I can beat it.’

  He looks at her. ‘You reckon?’

  ‘It’s not like it’s a competition, but yeah.’

  ‘I’m looking forward to that,’ Chris says. ‘How come you aren’t scared of telling everyone?’

  ‘I’m shitting myself,’ Heather says. ‘But I know I’ll feel better afterwards. I know I need to do it. I know you need to do it.’

  ‘Not yet,’ Chris says. ‘Not ready.’

  ‘That’s fine,’ Heather says. ‘Don’t leave the group though. Don’t use that as an excuse for leaving.’

  ‘Nothing to do with that,’ Chris says. He turns to her and grins. ‘It’s the people I can’t stand.’

  ‘Cheeky bastard.’

  ‘Imagine how boring it would be if I wasn’t there. Just Dr Dull, the Desperate Housewife and Moby Dick.’

  Heather smiles, in spite of herself. ‘Haven’t I got a nickname?’

  ‘I’m still working on it.’

  Heather stands up and buttons her jacket. Top button first, then the bottom, then the middle, same as always. There’s no good reason, it just makes her feel better. She says, ‘Come on. You fancy a coffee?’

  Chris is watching the picnickers. ‘Weird, isn’t it? Remembering places you got high. What you took, who you were with. Like a great memory and a terrible one at the same time.’ He stops, hearing Heather swear and turns to see her holding her arm out, staring at a glistening gobbet of bird shit on her sleeve. He starts to laugh.

  ‘Piss off. This is my favourite jacket.’

  Chris pulls a used serviette from his takeaway box and passes it to her. ‘It’s supposed to be lucky.’

  Heather starts walking away. ‘I need some water.’

  ‘Lucky Heather!’ Chris stands up and hurries to catch her up. ‘There you go. That’s brilliant.’

  ‘You think I’m lucky?’

  Back together, they walk quickly towards Park Lane. ‘You’re still alive,’ Chris says.

  … THEN

  Diana had offered to drive her back to the tube station at High Barnet, but Caroline had insisted that there was really no need, that the walk to the bus stop would do her good.

  ‘It all helps, right?’ she had said. A smile, a blush and a palm tracing the sphere of her belly.

  Now, she trudges back towards the High Street, breathing hard, feeling the sweat gathering on her neck and in the small of her back, in the creases behind her knees. Nylon sticking to her. There isn’t a chance she’ll walk off so much as a pound, not after all the mayo she’d slathered across that tasteless salad, but she might walk off a little of the envy.

  She can feel it cool and begin to disperse in her chest, step by agonising step.

  Embracing Diana on the doorstep, Caroline had sucked in what felt like a mouthful of something sickly that probably cost as much per designer bottle as she earned in a day. A week, maybe. Those stupid pedigree dogs still yapping outside as they said their goodbyes. That house, which Diana had copped for simply because her old man had found a younger model. All that bitterness, the tedious ranting about the woman who had stolen her beloved away and it wasn’t like she’d married him for his good looks in the first place, was it?

  Caroline slows a little, then stops. Her knees are killing her, so she reaches into her reasonably priced bag and feels for the small plastic bottle.

  She wonders just how many lies she and Diana had told one another in the last couple of hours. Diana was good at it, no question. She had almost made Caroline feel sorry for her, all that horrible dirty money flooding in. What a nightmare that must be. The woman had a nice line in empty compliments, as well. A smile of what might have been admiration on her face, of pride even, when the truth was that Caroline hadn’t lost an ounce since the last session, had put a bit of weight on, if anything.

  Pity was all Caroline had seen, all she ever saw.

  Maybe you just got better at lying as you got older, though Caroline knew that she was pretty damn good at it herself. All that rubbish about the pain, for a kick-off; how good it was. Yes, there were times she did her best to grin and bear it, but not for very long, because only an idiot would suffer when they didn’t have to. Sometimes, she thinks, it’s fun to lie just for the hell of it; when it means nothing. It hadn’t been Mr Wilson she’d fancied at school, it had been Mr Roach, the music teacher, and she’d done a lot more than fancy him. She smiles, remembering, and continues to rummage.

  A couple of kids whizz by on bikes, shouting something. The usual stuff, comments about the size of her arse, but she doesn’t even look up.

  Her fingers close around the bottle of painkillers.

  The warmth of the plastic and the rattle of the pills inside feel almost as good as a chicken leg tastes, or a custard slice.

  She starts walking again, just for a minute or so until she reaches the High Street. It’s busy with Saturday afternoon shoppers, cars cruising slowly, seeking parking spots. Looking for somewhere she can buy a bottle of water to take her pills with, she sees a newsagent on the opposite side of the road, sandwiched between a bakery and a burger bar.

  Fucking typical. Fucking wonderful.

  The kids on the bikes have turned round and cycle past again to have another go. Sarcastic whistles this time, a barely literate comment about Jabba the Hutt. Caroline thinks about what she would like to do to them if she could catch them. She thinks about that dirty old bastard of a music teacher and the way he used to look at her.

  How he would look at her now.

  She can’t be bothered to w
alk as far as the pedestrian crossing, so she waits for a good-sized gap in the traffic and crosses the road.

  Tony has just said goodbye to his final client of the day, and when he takes his phone out he sees four missed calls from a number he recognises. He walks slowly back upstairs. He had heard the buzzing from his jacket pocket while he was trying to talk about methadone withdrawal to a nineteen-year-old girl. The girl had heard it too. ‘It’s OK if you need to get that,’ she had said. She had nodded towards the jacket on the back of his chair, then looked away; wringing her hands, drumming the heels of her trainers on the stripped wooden floor.

  Now, he dials the number as he walks back into his office.

  ‘Oh, thank Christ…’

  Heather answers almost immediately and begins jabbering. She tells him she’s been desperate to get hold of him, that she doesn’t know what to do. She tells him she’d been thinking of jumping on a bus and coming round. When he can get a word in, Tony tells her that he’s been busy with clients, that he does have other clients, even on a Saturday. Keeping his voice nice and steady, he asks her what the matter is and when she tells him, he says, ‘You’re being ridiculous.’

  ‘I’m not.’

  ‘Heather, it’s a jacket,’ he says.

  ‘I don’t know what to do.’

  ‘It’s bird shit on a jacket.’

  ‘You don’t understand.’

  Tony puts his head round the door, looks out, then closes it. He walks back to his desk and drops into the chair. ‘Trust me, I’m trying to.’

  ‘I bloody love this jacket,’ Heather says. ‘It’s the nicest thing I’ve got. The only nice thing.’

  ‘Yes, but it is just a thing.’ Tony begins tidying his desk; straightening papers, popping pens into the old coffee tin next to his printer. ‘That’s the point. The best things in life aren’t things.’

  Heather does not appear to have been listening. ‘Why shouldn’t I have nice things? Don’t I deserve nice things as much as anyone else?’

  ‘Course you do.’

  ‘So, why do they always get ruined?’

  ‘Who says it’s ruined?’

  ‘It won’t be the same.’

  ‘It’ll be fine.’

  ‘Even if it looks the same, I’ll know.’

  ‘I think you’re being overdramatic.’

  Heather says nothing for a while. She sniffs, coughs. Tony can hear voices from her TV in the background. She sighs and says, ‘I’m just so stressed, you know?’

  ‘We’ve talked through your coping strategies, haven’t we?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘You remember?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘But you won’t need them, all right? Not today.’ It’s ridiculous, but Tony knows he needs to ask. ‘You’re not considering using, are you?’

  ‘Course I’m not.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘But it’s the same… feeling, you know? Like nothing’s worth it, like what’s the point?’

  ‘Tell me what you mean.’

  ‘Like what’s the point of caring about anything? Like it was easier when I didn’t give a toss. When I didn’t care what I looked like, or how my hair was, or if I stank.’

  ‘It’s just a jacket, Heather.’ Tony looks up at the calendar. Another ten weeks and he’ll be in Venice or Berlin or Barcelona, eating sushi in a smart hotel. Sometimes he thinks that his screwed-up, egomaniac rock star is far easier to deal with than most of the ‘civilians’ he treats. The rock star’s word, not his. He lowers his voice a little. ‘I know you liked it and I understand what you’re saying, but what we’re doing is trying to make you care about yourself, OK? When we’ve done that, you’ll see that while it’s great to have the nice things you’re talking about, they’re not the be-all and end-all. It’s not how we measure self-worth.’

  On Heather’s television, someone is shouting. An audience whoops and cheers. ‘Why do these things always happen to me, though?’

  ‘I don’t think it was personal,’ Tony says.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The bird shit.’

  Heather laughs, but she sounds tired. She says, ‘Fucking seagull…’

  ‘I need to go,’ Tony says. ‘I’ll see you on Monday, OK?’

  ‘You always make me feel better,’ Heather says. ‘Always.’

  He glances at the door. ‘That’s nice to hear, but you need to know that this isn’t why I gave you my number. Any of my clients.’

  ‘What’s that mean?’

  ‘It’s supposed to be for emergencies, OK? For when you’re really in trouble. When relapse is a serious possibility.’ He leaves a few seconds, wanting it to sink in. ‘You can’t be calling me about things like this.’ He waits again. ‘Heather?’

  She takes another few moments. There’s more sniffing and coughing, like she’s hawking something up. She says, ‘Tough love now, is it?’

  ‘Heather, it isn’t —’

  ‘Tell me who else I’m supposed to call.’

  … NOW

  Dr Robin Joffe had said that he would prefer not to use his office, so came down to meet Tanner and Chall outside the entrance to A&E at the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead.

  ‘I hope you don’t mind,’ he said as they shook hands. It was drizzly and he began buttoning up his overcoat. ‘No offence, but police officers tend to look like police officers in my experience.’

  ‘And you’d rather not be seen talking to us,’ Tanner said.

  ‘Wouldn’t most people?’

  Joffe led the two officers out on to the road and began walking down Pond Street towards Hampstead Heath station.

  ‘My mum was treated in there,’ Chall said, nodding back towards the hospital. ‘Knee replacement. You might have put her under.’

  ‘When was she treated?’

  ‘Oh… it was about ten years ago, I think.’

  ‘I was working somewhere else then,’ Joffe said. ‘She was lucky.’

  ‘Yeah, it’s a good hospital, isn’t it?’

  ‘Lucky not to have me, I mean.’ Joffe was walking quickly. He was stocky, a touch overweight, but still surprisingly fit. Though some people’s hair went white a lot earlier than others’, Tanner had him down as being somewhere in his early sixties. ‘I wasn’t exactly at my best back then.’

  They stopped for traffic at the bottom of Pond Street, then crossed into South End Green, the confluence of several busy roads and the gateway to the heath. At its centre was a fenced-off area, with a pair of old-fashioned red phone boxes and half a dozen benches surrounding a large, Gothic-looking fountain.

  ‘It’s Victorian,’ Joffe said. ‘Listed, I think.’ He began leading Tanner and Chall slowly round the fountain. ‘Once in a while someone raises the money to get it working, but a few months later the council decides to turn it off again.’

  Chall was doing his best to look interested, but Tanner was grateful that the circuit was no more than twenty or twenty-five steps. They were not here to go sightseeing. Looking down, she saw that every few feet, a quotation from a famous writer had been carved into the paving slabs beneath her feet. Orwell, Keats, Robert Louis Stevenson. She stopped to read the somewhat incongruous contribution from Agatha Christie.

  If one sticks too rigidly to one’s principles, one would hardly see anybody.

  After wiping moisture away with a handkerchief, Joffe sat down on an empty bench and stretched his legs out. Tanner and Chall joined him, one on either side. It was warm, despite the drizzle, and most of the other benches were occupied. What looked like a pair of students ate salad from plastic containers, a teenage girl communed with her phone, and an elderly woman sat murmuring to a small dog.

  Tanner took her notebook from her bag.

  ‘This was all done up last year.’ Joffe waved a hand towards the railings and the low hedge on the other side, beneath which several rows of tired-looking daffodils and tulips had been neatly laid out and had dutifully bloomed.

  ‘Nice.’ Chall nodded down at the
uplighters built into the paving stones and the literary words of wisdom etched into the concrete around them. ‘I read Animal Farm at school.’

  ‘All about reclaiming the spot for the local community, apparently, but really more to do with getting shot of the boozers and junkies who were hanging around.’ Joffe shook his head. ‘Hence getting the special new benches.’

  ‘They’re comfortable,’ Chall said.

  Joffe stabbed a finger towards the raised metal ridges that divided the bench they were sitting on into three separate seats. ‘Yes, they’re OK to sit on, but they’re designed to be impossible to stretch out and sleep on.’

  ‘Ah,’ Chall said.

  ‘The locals can be a bit… intolerant,’ Joffe said. He looked across at Tanner, as though she might find what he had to say next of special interest. ‘They didn’t want a new Sainsbury’s either.’

  Tanner managed a nod, which meant nothing. She said, ‘We’ll try not to keep you, Dr Joffe.’

  ‘It’s Robin.’

  Tanner waited.

  ‘Whatever I can do to help,’ Joffe said. ‘Whatever’s going to help catch the person responsible.’ He shook his head. ‘I still can’t quite believe it. Well, none of us can.’

  Tanner asked the most important question first, hoping that Joffe’s answer might speed things up a little.

  ‘I went to the pub with everyone else straight after the session,’ Joffe said. ‘Same as we usually did. I left after about an hour, I think.’

  Tanner asked for the name of the pub and wrote it down. ‘What did you do after that?’

  ‘I went home and was visited by an escort.’ He stared at Tanner, waiting for a reaction. Next to him, Chall shifted in his seat. ‘She was called Amber, though I’m sure that’s not her real name because she’s Eastern European. They all are. I’m very happy to give you the name of the escort agency so you can check all this out.’